I am John Toppa, and I have spent three years on the board of a young adult ministry in Melbourne watching people decide whether or not to stay.
What young adults, early twenties to late thirties, want from parish life is not a small question. It is the question the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has been trying to answer for fifteen years. Study after study lands on the same finding. This is the age range where a person either remains an active parishioner, slides into the Christmas and Easter category, or falls away altogether. From my time with TECUM, I have watched a few patterns hold.
The first is marriage. Most young Catholic adults who join a church ministry are looking to deepen their sacramental life, and for the majority that means a spouse and a family. A large share of the feedback the board hears after an event is a request for more intentional events built around dating. That is harder to deliver than it sounds. The interest does not always arrive in balanced numbers. Plan and advertise a singles event, and if the ratio of men to women who show up is lopsided, the evening gets awkward and can turn people off the whole ministry. What has worked better is larger group events that give relationships room to form on their own rather than under a spotlight.
The second is support for young families. Many young parents are barely getting through the day with one or more children under the age of three. We built mom's and dad's groups to meet those families where they are, and making real resources easy to reach has been a big part of TECUM's growth. The women's group in particular has formed a strong core around miscarriage and postpartum support, which are needs the parish had not been meeting in any deliberate way.
The third is newer, and it is the one I find most interesting. Generation Z is not the millennial generation over again. The Gen Z members, especially the new converts, are after substance and stability. Reverence, immutable principles, well rooted teaching, and the chance to worship properly are rising concerns, and they grow every year. I think it is a response to a world that rewrites its social rules faster than anyone can keep up with. These young adults are drawn to what is true, good, and beautiful, and many of their paths into the Church were deeply theological and philosophical. They are less interested in talking about feelings than about history and doctrine. The men take up apologetics and go looking for old lies to answer. It is an active generation, more willing to state its beliefs in public than the ones before it.
Meeting that hunger is an ongoing conversation on our board, and the answer keeps starting in the same place. Events built around adoration, confession, and the Mass. They are not asking us to entertain them. They are asking us to give them something solid to stand on.
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